Knob

Stakes

You might say: what’s at risk, what could be lost

What the character loses if she fails. Bell groups stakes as three kinds of death: physical, professional and psychological.

What it does

Sets how much the reader cares about each conflict.

Ask

What happens if she fails, and how could it get worse?

Typical

Personal and public stakes (Maass); at least one kind of death (Bell)

Trouble

Big explosions but a bored reader: the loss is not personal.

What to look for

1. Personal and public consequences
2. Physical, professional or psychological death

Catalogue: Kind of death

• Physical death: Someone dies if the opposition wins. Maya’s own name is on the list.
• Professional death: The job or calling is on the line. If Maya speaks up, she may never work as a nurse again.
• Psychological death: She dies inside if she fails to change. If Maya stays quiet, she becomes part of the silence.

Connections

• Raises: Tension and release

Sources

1. Donald Maass, “Exercise: Defining Personal Stakes”, Steps 1–5Without personal stakes, even the highest-voltage thriller can read like an empty plot exercise.
2. Donald Maass, “Exercise: Raising Public Stakes”, Steps 1–5Take them higher and deeper. Make them worse—much worse.
3. James Scott Bell, “High Stakes? Death. Always Death” interview, Question 2Death. Always death. Physical, professional, or psychological.

Use it on your project

teardown-apply: hold "Stakes" (stakes) from the teardown at https://teardownatlas.com/fiction-writing/ against my project

Paste it into a coding agent that has the teardown skills.

An AI agent wrote this map with the teardown skill. It can contain errors: check the sources before you rely on a part. About and legal